By Christine Pangan
You may have heard of the “reduced hours” programs that many firms have, but how does it actually work? According to Michael Attanasio, at Cooley LLP, for example, anyone with good reason can request an arrangement and still be considered for partner at the appropriate time. We asked attorneys Christina Morgan and Susan Nahama about their experiences in similar programs at different firms.
Christine Pangan: How does your program work?
Christina Morgan (CM): I was doing 2,200 billable hours and going to law school at the same time. It was insane. [Luce Forward] gave me the option of going to an 80 percent reduced schedule — I think it was 32 hours so I could still maintain my benefits. But what ended up happening was they reduced my salary and I still had as much work coming in. It wasn’t like someone was going, “You’re 80 percent, so let’s give you 20 percent less work.” That was my experience in a nutshell.
Susan Nahama (SN): I’ve been [at Klinedinst] since 1995. I was the first person to go on a flexible arrangement and it’s been fluid and changing. I’ve been doing it for 12 years in one form or another. In 2006 after having my second [child] I realized, similar to Christina, that the work load in litigation, is like, how’s this going to work? Because clients don’t know, judges don’t know you’re on a flexible schedule —
CM: and don’t care —
[everyone laughs]
SN: Right? “I don’t come in on Fridays” doesn’t really work. I’ve done everything from job sharing with another female partner, to a 50 percent arrangement. Now I’m currently at a 70 percent arrangement. Different things have worked better than others, but most importantly was the firm’s willingness to work and find a solution that would benefit everybody.
How did you request the program from your firm?
SN: We were in discussions about how and when, and if, I was going to come back at that time from maternity leave with my second [child]. They were willing to discuss alternative arrangements. I just basically asked.
Was it reduced, depending on the percentage of reduction, the same reduction in pay?
SN: With my arrangement, it is. I can’t speak to all arrangements. The firm needs to be profitable off of you whether you’re full time or part time; as a function of that, I can imagine they would look at things like your hourly rate, your business coming into the firm, your overhead. I think it really depends on all of those factors — that’s where negotiation comes in. You have to know your value to the firm.
CM: A big thing for me was having medical insurance. But if you were saying I don’t need insurance, I have it through someone else — a parent, a spouse — your arrangement could be different based on that.
SN: Another thing for me was adding value to the firm in other ways; it doesn’t have to be monetary. Doing things like running the mentor program, or attorney training within the firm.
Did you see a trend in terms of other scenarios besides lawyers who are having children?
CM: I’ve seen it where someone’s spouse has gone ill, or something like that, and they’ve gone on to be a caretaker for them.
SN: I’ve seen attorneys who are heading toward retirement who want to gradually decrease their billable hour requirement. We have people doing all kinds of things — pursuing other interests, writing books.
What are the benefits to a reduced schedule?
CM: I didn’t have to stress about meeting such a high billable requirement. You don’t have that in the back of your mind even if you are able to meet it. There wasn’t the same pressure.
When you were saying that you still did as many hours, is it because you have a deadline, so you had no choice but to work those hours?
CM: Exactly. And you have people in your practice group, right? So it can only be distributed in so many ways. And especially as a law clerk or associate, certain tasks are delegated to those people and there’s a finite amount of people who can do that work.
Did you end up making the same amount of billable hours anyway?
CM: Yes. I think I did it for a semester.
SN: To echo that, I think the benefit is the formalness of the reduced expectation. And obviously the benefit for whatever you’re doing it for. In my case, I wanted to be a present mom and I didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding if I’m not in the office for an afternoon. It has paid off in spades for me. The impact [of] me being able to participate at a meaningful level is worth all of the negatives.
CM: I did feel supported in what I was doing. I didn’t feel like they were trying to overburden me with work [or] like I was being penalized.
Are there any negatives you can think of?
CM: Just the idea of when you’re not in the office, you are still on the phone. Even if you’re trying to focus on whatever the reason is you’re out of the office, I feel like you’re still tied in. There’s no real way to sever family time, or school time.
SN: Every year has been different. The negative of it was that the work isn’t flexible in some regard. I could be flexible with my schedule, but in litigation there are certain things that do not care whether I’m there or not. It meant working at night [and] a lot of weekends to make up for not being present.
CM: At [one of my previous firms], they don’t have a flexible program in place. For some of our associates — they weren’t at that stage in their life where they were having children — but it was a factor for them in making their decisions for their career paths and where they went. And when they would approach managing partners, it was treated negatively. I think that is also common.
SN: I agree. As firms evolve and see the cost of retention versus losing attorneys, I hope it’s shifting. I think a lot of it is on the shoulders of people trying to implement the program that they set a good example.
Did you see men on reduced schedules at the firms you were at?
SN: We had a few. We had one who was more senior — near retirement — who was adding a ton to the firm from a mentor perspective and was amazing, so definitely a relationship to maintain. But the majority have been women and related to children.
Obviously, anyone at my firm, male or female, can take it. Even the reason isn’t really considered. So I’m wondering why it is all women who are taking advantage. There would be no difference if one of my male partners said they wanted a reduced schedule, but I’m not seeing it.
And you wouldn’t think anything of it?
SN: No. Not anymore. When I started probably. But now, things are kind of shifting to the work-life balance.
CM: I think it’s kind of the millennial mindset. It’s so important to the younger generation. But they’re also much more used to being on their devices, so they don’t mind being tied-in at any time. Where I feel sometimes tethered. I feel like it does not bother them at all; for them, this kind of schedule could actually really work.
SN: There is a dramatic difference in my flexible schedule when I started than now. Largely because of accessibility. When I started there was an ability to disconnect more. And you’re expected to be responsive 24/7, so I think I felt the benefit a little bit more those first few years when we weren’t so technology-heavy. Now, I think everyone feels it — we’re not disconnected at any time. But that’s not unique to flex schedules.
Any tips to consider for anyone who might want to try a reduced hours schedule?
SN: If your firm hasn’t done it, do your research. Go in with a plan. Be ready to talk about your profitability, your overhead, the value you add. Educate yourself so you can propose something that is fair to both sides.
CM: [Have] a few different options in place. Make sure you can offer it, but [if they say no] maybe Plan B works. And be flexible [while you’re] in it, and be flexible over time. Things can change in three months. I think they want to see that you’re willing to put in the hours when you need to, and they’re willing to be accommodating when it’s not as busy.
SN: I think be flexible, be creative. But keep in mind that it’s a business, so you have to show them why, as a business, this is something that they should offer whether it’s morale, culture and, again, still be profitable.
CM: You also have to know yourself. You may be working in the evenings, on the weekends. If that’s not your personality, then maybe this isn’t going to work for anyone, including yourself.
Anything else?
SN: I would hope at this point that more firms are open to it. I think that retention can be an expensive endeavor — you can almost always advocate a part-time arrangement over losing someone valuable.
CM: I hope it happens more from the firm management down. If an associate has offers where there’s already a program in place, then it’s just easier, they’ll just fall in line. If [management] sees they have people who have a need for whatever reason, maybe then they approach them before they get to the point where they have to reach out and breach the subject, or they have to leave to be accommodated.
Christine Pangan is co-editor of San Diego Lawyer and a lead attorney at Legal Aid Society of San Diego.
Christina Morgan is a transactional attorney at Withersworldwide. She was on a reduced hours schedule while at Luce Forward, then McKenna. Susan Nahama is a litigation attorney at Klinedinst. She was recently elected as managing shareholder and will no longer be on a reduced hours schedule.
This article was originally published in the July/August 2018 issue of San Diego Lawyer.